Last year in Bavaria, several hundred criminals were identified using facial recognition. The trend continues to rise.
Facial recognition: Photos are the new fingerprints – The most important thing to start with:
- Facial recognition successes are increasing
- Further development brings better success
- Image material is compared with the BKA's criminal database
The LKA (State Criminal Police Office) of Bavaria estimates the success rate with facial recognition programs to be even higher if the current possibilities were exploited more consistently. The Central Criminal Police Services/Cybercrime Department at the LKA sees itself as a pioneer here.
Bernhard Egger, head of this department, comments: “We are not making optimal use of what we are allowed to do.”
Increasing number of identifications
In 2019, the police in Bavaria were able to identify twice as many criminals using facial recognition software than in the previous year.
An increasing trend can be clearly seen. There were only ten cases in 2010, only 146 in 2018, and 387 cases in 2019. In 2020, 55 identities were identified in January alone. Bernhard Egger believes that better technology is responsible for this. The software can now process far worse photos than before.
Applications of the software
The LKA has been using this option for 12 years. Here, images showing unknown suspected perpetrators are compared with photos from a criminal database maintained by the Federal Criminal Police Office (BKA). First the algorithm is allowed to work. For example, it measures the distance between the nose and mouth and shows people who might match what you are looking for. The images are then checked again by facial experts to be on the safe side.
Egger also suggests that it is becoming increasingly important to find as many traces of images as possible at every crime scene. If he has his way, every colleague and every investigator should think about where relevant images can be found.
According to Egger, differences also appear in the individual federal states. The Federal Criminal Police Office does not disclose how many photo comparison requests were made to the BKA database. According to the LKA, the nationwide figures are only available later in the year. However, the federal government states that the federal police alone searched the BKA facial recognition system around 1,200 times in the first half of 2019 and were able to identify 219 people.
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Facial recognition: Concrete search for specific suspicions
The controversial software from Clearview also includes access to social networks. The police have nothing to do with such an approach.
Data protection officer Thomas Petri has approved the LKA procedure: “This is a concrete database that can be searched if there is a specific suspicion of a crime.
This is something completely different than what was discussed in Berlin or what is being argued about in Hamburg.” Regarding concerns about the privacy of each individual, he comments: “It corresponds, for good reason, with established case law that something like this Comprehensive, unrelated mass data collection is viewed as a serious intervention that contradicts our system of values.” It should not be the case that “everyone who walks past a camera feels and has to feel controlled. If we do something like that, it’s a matter of time before we get Chinese conditions.”
Comprehensive police database
In response to a query from interior expert Andrej Hunko (Left), the federal government published the answer at the end of January that the number of photos in the police's central database had increased by around one million photos in three and a half years.
Accordingly, in May 2016 there were around 4.86 million photos from 3.34 million people. There are currently more than 5.7 million images in the database. Unfortunately, the LKA system is not entirely error-free. Many cases in which suspicions have not been confirmed are still kept in the police file.
Related to the topic: Authorities scan Facebook photos!
Source: heise.de
Article image: Glomex
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